In the Place Where You'd Rather Not Be

 

Learn from the things that are already in the place where you wish you were not. – Padraig O’Tuama in The Shelter, (p.9) 

A dead lightbulb has been sitting on our kitchen island for more than a week. Before that, it was in the light fixture above our dining room table for more than a month, dead. I unscrewed it in a burst of this room is too dark and depressing, I’m going to do something about it energy. That was at least a week ago and it now sits on the kitchen island waiting for someone who’s going to the store that sells the right kind of bulb to remember to take it along for comparison and finally buy a new one. 

That lightbulb is driving me crazy. 

That lightbulb is revealing things about the place I’m in that I would rather not know. 

(Don’t worry, the lightbulb isn’t telling me I’m a failure, it’s not that kind of bulb.) 

When I listen closely, though, the lightbulb has a lot to say. It tells me there’s a lot going on in my life right now. So much, that little details are certain to have to be let go. It invites me to pick my priorities, again. It helps me to see that having food on the table is a triumph in itself and one good conversation that invests in the future shines a light brighter than any bulb. 

I’m in a place I don’t want to be in, again. A place of many and much, a place of I didn’t realize we were going to have to deal with this now, but here we are in the middle of it anyway.  

Following Padraig’s advice, I feel my heart muscle stretch to open to this new place, this new challenge, this here and now. Once it's open, once I accept what is, I can begin to learn. I can begin to welcome the belief that even in this place, what we need is here. And so I begin by listening to the lightbulb, by “listening to the things that are already in the place where you wish you were not.”

The Hammock and the Bee

Lord, I curl in thy grey 

gossamer hammock

that swings by one

elastic thread to thin

twigs that could, that should

break but don't.

- Denise Levertov

//

Our eight-year-old boys strung a thin nylon hammock between two trees and hung there together for hours today. The slick material closed around their wriggling bodies like a clam shell, like a cocoon, and they tussled and turned, swinging in the shadow of the green pines.

Isaiah stepped on a bee this afternoon, an unlucky first for the season. He hobbled, screaming and crying across the yard and I threw back the covers where I laid upstairs in bed, eking out a meager nap. I trotted downstairs, knowing my husband would get there first, imagining what kind of injury would cause such a clamor, wondering how we’d handle the ER if needed.

His older brother mouthed the words, “bee sting” as I made my way to the kitchen where Isaiah already had ice on his foot and his Dad held tweezers poised to pull out the stinger. Isaiah's face crumpled in pain and he shook and hopped one-footed to the living room couch where he sat with ice and a comic book.

When I saw him later, he wore socks and shoes, a rare sight for my barefoot boy. Later still, I saw him down in the yard, climbing the fence with his brother, wearing just his socks. By the time I crossed the yard to invite them on a bike ride, they were back in the hammock again. I stood and watched from a distance as he peeled the dirty white socks off his feet, one then the other, and tossed them overboard into the pine needles and dirt.  

Our grass is filled with wide swaths of clover.

Every year he gets stung stepping on bees.

Every time he screams and cries.

Every time it isn’t long before he heads back out, his dirty feet bare and vulnerable as he trots across the open green expanse of the yard.

//

For another story about my barefoot boy, check out this quick essay from 2014, "This is my shoeless boy, feet stained purple. . ."

I'll be sharing poems every weekday in April in honor of National Poetry Month. Like my page: Kelly Chripczuk: Writer, Speaker, Spiritual Director to stay up to date with the latest. 

Vulnerability & Trust in the Classroom

Every once in a while, I have the opportunity to teach a full semester's worth of introductory biblical studies materials over a period of fifteen days.  This, January, is one of those once-in-a-whiles.  Which is why I haven't been posting much here.  But I have been listening to my life, thinking, paying attention and the thoughts that follow are just a bit of what I've been noticing.

  

"I don't know."

I said those three scary words at least twice in class the other day.  

From the front of the room.  

As the professor. 

I can’t tell you how alarming that would have been for me when I first started teaching college level classes.  I was fresh from seminary then, wearing the one suit I owned.

 

That suit was – as they often are – something like a suit of armor.  It was a symbol that I was an adult (even though I didn’t feel like one) and that I knew what I was talking about (even though I didn’t feel like I did).  Looking back, I can see how fear-driven my teaching was, even though I didn’t want it to be.  I wanted to connect with the students, to engage, but I was unable to allow the kind of vulnerability that forms community. 

I was too attached to my armor of rayon/polyester and knowledge. I set up every aspect of the class in a way that guaranteed I would know the answers to any question that arose.  I chose the passages we studied based on papers I’d written in graduate school – a sure-fire way (I hoped) of ensuring I would know more about the topic at hand than any one else in the room.

I often wondered why I felt so isolated, lonely, and frustrated as a teacher.

//

This time around, some fourteen years later, I purposely wore jeans on the first day of class.  Mostly, I wanted to feel like myself and, as someone who works from home, I wear jeans almost every day.  Feeling like myself meant drawing on the sense of authority I carry day-in-and day-out as a parent, writer, spiritual director, and middle-aged human being.  Also, I wanted to lessen the distance between the students and myself, and jeans seemed like a concrete, visual way to do that. 

First thing, on the first day, I explained that every class would start with five minutes of silence.  This would be our way of acknowledging the presence of God which dwells - like silence – above, below, and in-between all our words.  After silence, I explained that, because this was their class, the first twenty minutes of every class was theirs to use as they saw fit.  Every student has an opportunity to submit a topic for conversation and we use silly questions to decide who will draw a question out of the stack. 

Those twenty minutes were a little awkward the first day – and still are, sometimes – but we’ve had some laughs, heard some differing perspectives, and even witnessed a little passion.  I like to believe giving the students some time and space up front, is one, small, concrete way of reminding them that this class is for them.  It also gives me an opportunity to observe and eavesdrop on who they are, how they interact with each other, and how they think about the world we live in.  In short, it gives me a chance to listen and builds community.

Finally, before lecture that first day, I explained that we needed to choose a passage to explore together in class the following day.  I gave them a few minutes to think about it, then invited them to offer suggestions.  Many offered favorite, well-known passages, but there were some random ones thrown out too.  I didn’t even flinch (hardly, anyway) when someone tossed out a story I’d never heard of from the apocrypha.  After we had ten or so to choose from, the students voted and chose Jeremiah 29.

I stopped by the library after class and grabbed a couple of commentaries.  That night, I spent about a half hour familiarizing myself with the context and reading through the passage.  Mostly, I figured, we’d figure it out together the following day.  And we did.  

Rather than worrying about the class, I looked forward to it.  I suppose part of this is the confidence that comes from teaching and preaching for years – a gift I’m grateful to have found.  Under-girding my decision, though, was the belief that what would be gained by working together, side-by-side, was more than what might be lost by me not knowing all the answers. 

//

I have a great group of students this semester.  They’re older, and more prepared to handle the course material.  Many are seniors and already thinking about how the things they learn now will apply to life in the ‘real world.’   All of this leads to a more enjoyable class environment.  But the thing I’m most grateful for, is a deeper capacity to be with the students, to create an atmosphere where those three little words, “I don’t know,” are nothing more than a fertile starting point for conversation, exploration and comradery. 

Discipline & Struggle

We go up to heaven and down to hell a dozen times a day - at least, I do. And the discipline of work provides an exercise bar, so that the wild, irrational motions of the soul become formal and creative. 
- May Sarton in Journal of a Solitude

Seated in the corner of my office, I close the internet window on my laptop and hunker down to write.  With just a half hour left before I leave to meet a friend for lunch, I ought to have enough time to squeeze in my goal of 500 words for the day. 

I need to write something for the week’s blog post and, hopefully, for my newsletter too.  Neither need to be very long.  The problem, though, as I begin, is that, well, I don’t know where to begin.  I don’t have a story to tell, not even the faintest glimmer of an idea to explore.  I had a couple of ideas flitting around last week, but failed to capture them and now one is stale, like bread left out overnight, and the other is shrouded in fog too dense to be explored in this limited amount of time.

Still, I close the internet, sit in my chair, and begin. . . . (pop over to author and editor, Andi Cumbo-Floyd's place to read the rest of this piece).  Leave me a message there, then take a few minutes to look around at all the lovely tools and supports for writers Andi has going on. 

A Painter Stopped By, Out of the Blue

I started painting three years ago because our new-old farm house had large wall spaces; wide, paneled surfaces. 

I started painting because we couldn’t afford to buy art to hang. 

Driving home from the grocery store one day with the twins buckled in to their car seats in the middle of the van, I eased around a corner, down a steep hill in a wooded stretch of road and saw several large framed paintings and prints in a stand of overgrown brush, leaning against a tree.  I quickly pulled over to the side of the road, popped the trunk, and pulled the paintings inside.  Two, in wood frames with glass, showed hunting scenes, ducks rising out of wooded brush.   Another was a large print of a white wicker basket overflowing with pink, teal and baby blue flowers, something your grandmother might have hung over her couch in the eighties. 

I bought magenta paint, turquoise and midnight blue and started painting over top of the prints and on other found canvases.  I borrowed more colors from a friend.

I started painting because the bright colors made me happy.  The slick movement of spreading paint across a surface was calming, like coloring with crayons, like trailing your fingers through fine sand.

I painted words because I didn’t believe I could paint images and because the words in my head and heart needed space, needed a place to land, to become incarnate, objects of permanence.  I painted words because I saw a tutorial online about how to do it well with sticker stencils. 

I painted words and hung them on the walls of our house like tattoos.

//

Last week, a real painter stopped by our farm house.  He paints in oils, sells his work in galleries.  He wanted to know if he could take pictures of our chickens, our polish rooster in particular.

“I paint,” I said, “I just started this fall.” 

“It’s always nice to meet another artist,” I said.  

He showed me pictures of his oil paintings, scrolling through the images of landscapes and farm scenes on his phone. I didn’t show him my paintings, which suddenly felt like child’s play. 

“I paint words.  I’m a word person,” I said.

Later, after he left me with his business card in hand, I looked him up online.  His website is outdated.  I found grammatical and spelling errors and was pleased.  He, at least, is not a word person. 

//

I wondered if his visit was the encouragement I had prayed for fervently that morning; prayers filled with longing, prayers beyond words.  But after he left I looked at my own work with a cutting eye.  It’s hard to write when you’re discouraged, hard to create when you don’t believe. 

When I returned to my studio, my computer, I saw that a friend had sent a message about a job opening – an opening for a position I have kept an eye on for years.  I looked it up.  The job is full time, in my field.   It would leave no time for painting, for writing, for working at the library.  But, in exchange, there would be money, status, a title and many other things I image are more substantial, more valuable, than words tattooed on walls with stencils and acrylic, words strung across pages, hung like spiders’ webs, simultaneously sturdy and insubstantial. 

//

I had asked the painter whether he retired before painting full time.  He smiled and said, “In a way.”  Then, he explained that they live off of his wife’s job.  I told him about my husband who works for the state. 

“It’s a good steady job,” I said, “but we’re not getting rich.”  I didn’t say what I meant, which is that we’re not making ends meet. 

I told him about working part time at the library, about adding a tab on my website for design services.  “But how much can I do?” I asked myself aloud and him, because he was standing there.  “How much can I do and still be able to write?”

He didn’t have an answer.  But he said he’d stop by sometime to take pictures of the chickens, the view of the fields, the distant mountains across the street.  I told him if he was going to take pictures of the hens, he’d want some of our handsome black cat too.  Maybe he will set up his easel here sometime and paint plein air.  The kids would love that, I would too.

//

A letter came in the mail recently, notifying us that the farm land across the street is in the process of being rezoned; if the local vote passes, it will be protected farmland, unable to be sold or divvied up for development.  We never expected to buy a house like this with its view of open fields and rolling hills in the distance.  We’ve often assumed it would someday be sold for development like so many of the surrounding fields. 

I mentioned the rezoning to my Dad the other day, over lunch.  “It’s good for us,” I said. “Value-wise,” I added.

I don’t know why I said that, though.  Maybe because that’s the way he thinks, the way he talks, in dollars and cents.  But, the truth is, we don’t want to lose the view to progress and development because we love it.  It's something like the way I don’t want to lose my life with words and paint to a paycheck and a title: I love it.

I started painting and writing because I needed to. 

I’ll keep painting and writing because it’s still true.

We Were Robbed and It Was Good (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

If I were to characterize Jesus' ministry, it would be to refocus people away from a sin focus and onto a life focus.  Where you give your focus, you give your energy.  - Vern Hyndman

Wednesday my husband came home early to take our daughter to the dentist and work on installing a long-awaited dishwasher in our home.  Working to frame a cabinet around the hand-me-down appliance, he trotted out to the garage to cut a piece of wood. 

The counter in the wood shop was empty, no saw.  He looked around in confusion, walked around hunting.  We’re not always very organized with our tools and, after a while, he asked the kids and me whether we’d seen or moved his equipment.  The more he looked around, the more things he found missing.  Reality dawned slowly, someone broke into our garage and stole several of my husband’s large wood working tools – a chop saw, a drill press, an electric drill, among other smaller things. 

Two police officers came to our house that afternoon and spent a good bit of time looking around.  It was all terribly exciting for the kids who hunted the yard and garage for footprints and other clues.  John and I continued to wrap our minds around the forethought and planning it would take – two people at least and a vehicle – to empty his shop of equipment.  We believe they came in the night, Monday night to be precise, while we slept with our bedroom windows closed against the heat and an ancient window unit AC throbbing out all outside noises.

In the middle of helping our kids not be scared and figuring out what we need equipment-wise to move forward, John and I have worked through the anger and discouragement that follows crime.  We’ve talked about the buttons it pushes, how disbelief is followed by anger and then a pervasive sense of futility (or what my husband calls being glum).  We’ve wondered aloud and privately whether this event might change the way we live and, more importantly, the way we think about life itself (which is always behind the way we choose to live).  In the middle of it all, despite the very real loss of tools we cannot really afford to replace, there’s a part of me that wants to call this event ‘good.’ 

When evil arrives, in any form, two of its ugliest fruits are the lies, “you are alone” and “there is not enough.”  With these two lies, evil sets itself up to multiply, because evil flourishes in isolation and scarcity.  

But when we shared about the robbery on facebook, friends near and far expressed concern, outrage and sorrow.   We were reminded, as a friend said, “You are not alone in this!”  Also, within minutes of posting, a friend sent a private message, “We have a drill press you can have,” she wrote.  This generous offer reminded us there’s enough to go around.    

These reminders were indeed good and we count ourselves as lucky because too many people do experience crime in the midst of real and crushing isolation and scarcity.  But, beyond these reminders, there was, I believe, a goodness in the robbery itself, in it happening to us (or, maybe I should speak for myself here – to me). 

It was good, not because theft is good or because I can imagine scenario in which someone really did really need our resources more than us, but because it is true and real.  Crime is a reality, or maybe I should put it another way – sin is a reality. 

Too often I’m prone to pretend it isn’t.

Before we go nodding our heads, though, and clucking our tongues over the state of the world we live in, it might be helpful to remember the words of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes.  “There is nothing new under the sun,” he says.  Just nine verses in to a ten chapter book, and he lays out his sobering conclusion.  It’s almost as though he concludes before beginning, “It is, what it is.”   

It is what it is – robbery, racism, fear, hatred, isolation – all of these things always have been and always will be.  Sit with that for a while, if you will.  Or, if you don’t want to take the Teacher’s word for it, read elsewhere in the bible.  Take the book of Amos, for example, wherein an unlikely prophet calls Israel to task for conflating politics with religion, for allowing robbery and violence to flourish in their midst, for trampling the poor underfoot in a continual rush toward material greed and personal pleasure (7:10-17, 3:10, 5:11, 6:4-6, 2:6-8) all while continuing to perform empty religious rituals (5:21-24).  All of this, among the people of God, mind you. 

Or, read history.  Chose a time, a place, any one, and you will find sin working in obvious and not-so-obvious ways.  It is, what it is. 

Christians must accept the reality of sin.  Small wrong-doings, like a local robbery or the way you treat your kids when you’re tired or hungry or simply done at the end of a long, hot, humid, summer day, can be good reminders.  Local news, national news, international news, these all serve as reminders too, but not when viewed as extraordinary.  The times we live in are like no other and yet, they are like every other time before this.  “There is nothing new under the sun,” the Teacher says, not even evil itself is new or different than it has even been. 

It all seems rather grim, doesn’t it?   

But this is where I see something glimmer, a small nugget of good news tucked right in the middle of the darkness, which is, by the way where we ought to most often expect to find the gospel. 

The good news is this:  there is nothing new.  Not when it comes to evil.  It is and it is the same, without end.  So if we’re going to get up in arms about anything, let it be this – there is nothing new under the sun save for the gospel which is continually and again inviting us and everyone who does and doesn’t look like us and speak like us and pray or sing like us to pitch in and be part of that which has already overcome.

 

We can spend our energy bemoaning evil, which never changes, or we can turn our hearts and minds to the work of God, the way of God, in the world.  We can open our very lives to the power of God in Christ Jesus that's forever redeeming. 

Sin is not new and (good news!) neither is its cure.  And even sin itself, our own or others', can be an invitation, a reminder that we can choose where we place our focus and how we use our energy.  

*   *   *   *

Only 10 spaces left!  I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.   

Spontaneity - The Discipline of Un-Discipline (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

“I’m working on being more spontaneous,” she said with a straight face and all the seriousness of someone for whom spontaneity is struggle.  She was one of my first mentors and the comment was made in passing, but it's stuck with me for sixteen years. 

It’s a pleasingly ironic intention, to try hard at not trying, to make it a goal to deviate from set goals.  I smiled at the idea from the moment I heard it.  These days I'm thinking again of spontaneity as a spiritual discipline and recognizing the trust involved in embracing the gift of each moment.    

//

By the time all of the kids are in bed, around 8:45 pm on these long light-filled summer days, I’m done, so very done.  When at last I lay down my mothering hat after fourteen hours on duty, I have two options left – read a book or watch TV.  Occasionally, a third option presents itself – go to bed.   

If, however, I sneak away by 6:45 or 7:00 when John herds the twins upstairs, I sometimes have enough life left in me to write.  This is what I was thinking the other night when I sat on the couch at 6:45 with the laptop open.  But then Solomon called for me.  I sat the laptop, still open, on the couch, intending to return, and followed his voice into the kitchen.

While I tended to his need Sophia wandered in, shoulders slumped.  “I’m bored,” she lamented.

“Why don’t you do something with your art supplies?” I suggested knowing how rarely maternal suggestions are heeded.  But lo and behold, five minutes later she waltzed into the kitchen with her easel and paints, waving a paint board in the air. 

“Who wants to paint?” she called.

I knew her invitation was directed at me.  We had fun painting together the other week and now she wanted to do it again.  But I didn’t want to paint, I wanted to write.  In that moment, though, with the laptop waiting open on the couch, I heard behind her invitation to paint an invitation to togetherness.   I didn’t want to paint, but I appreciated her desire to be with me and, with a little searching, I found my own desire to be with her. 

She set her easel on the kitchen island and I tried to refrain from chiding her over wasted paint as she squeezed what I viewed as needlessly large dollops onto her white plastic palette.  I didn’t want to paint, but I did have some new stamps and ink pads I wanted to try out.  I went out to the Little House to fetch my supplies and sat down diagonal from my daughter at the kitchen counter. 

I put too little ink on the stamp and the medallion image was incomplete.  I put too much on and it globbed together on the page. Slowly, hit and miss, I covered the page with cobalt blue doilies of ink.  Next I opened a new set of alphabet stamps and broke them apart one-by-one. 

“Let me guess,” Sophia said, watching, “you’ve had those for a long time but haven't ever used them.” 

Oh that girl knows her mother well - the hoarding and saving, the waiting for just the right time to enjoy something new - that girl with her great gobs of excess paint.  “No,” I said, pleased with myself, “they’re new, but I just got them.” 

I tried covering the letter stamps with paint with varying results, then I went back to the ink pads and started building words letter by letter.  Unsure where to begin, Sophia started with a bold red line stretched diagonally across the middle of her canvas.  Slowly it grew to a rainbow that filled the whole page.  

“It’s funny,” said Sophia observing her own work, “you don’t know what you’re going to paint, but you just start with a color and build on from there.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s like there was something waiting to be painted but you didn’t know it before you started.”

On my paper I had stamped the word “love” with varying degrees of legibility, then I added “very sweet” enjoying the way the words built one letter at a time.  On the lower right hand side of the page, in Harbor blue ink, I stamped the word “writer.” 

Looking at my page as I finished, I realized I was writing after all - words were seeping onto the page despite the absence of my laptop and its keys. 

//

Maybe this is the secret to spontaneity - the trust that what is needed will come regardless, the belief that all the great gifts of our lives are truly gifts, not gotten but given.  I'll continue to work at setting good boundaries and safe spaces around my writing life – goodness knows I need them.  But like my old mentor, I'll also work at being spontaneous.  The discipline of un-discipline reminds me that even when I’m not looking grace will find its way and what has been given will not be taken away.   

*   *   *   *

Only 10 spaces left!  I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.   

How All Our Salvation Begins (#SmallWonder Link-up)

(For the past several months, I've participated in a group organized by Oasis Ministries that meets for monthly silent retreat days.  We meet one Saturday a month at an old farm turned retreat center near Elizabethown, PA.)

I arrive in the nick of time, lugging a bag of books, my purse and a packed lunch.  Inside the old farm door I exchange greetings with a few and make my way to the bathroom.  Then I throw back a quick cup of coffee – I’m not fully awake yet – and head in to join the circle of silence. 

After a period of silent prayer and some brief reflection, the nine of us split off in different directions.  I make a beeline for more coffee and then head upstairs to a bedroom alone.  I journal briefly before doing what I know cannot be put off any longer.  Tipping to my side, I curl up with an ugly blanket on an even uglier couch and, in seconds, I drift off to sleep.

I wake to lunch time.  In the cold dining room, I eat around a long table with women who are mostly twenty to thirty years older than me.  I crunch red peppers and carrot sticks and crack my hard boiled egg too loudly on the table before realizing I can crush it gently with my fingers.  I drink hot tea at lunch, a follow-up to my hot coffee, because I’m cold and can’t seem to get warm. 

After lunch I find a sunny spot by a window and pile out my books and journals.  I thumb through a Birds and Blooms magazine cutting pictures and words that strike my eye with scissors I stole from my three-year-old’s office.  Then we gather again at the circle, for more silence and sharing around our reading for the month. 

During afternoon retreat time I head outside with more coffee and sit briefly on a bench watching bees buzz happy among the clover.  Then, still cold, I remember the black bed-liner in my husband’s old, red, pickup truck.  The black bed draws the sun like a magnet and climbing in I’m greeted by warmth and the smell of gasoline.  I unpack again, books and journal, in the bed of the truck, my back tucked into the corner.  I run inside one more time briefly for my sunglasses and trade my cup of coffee for a plastic cup of water.

In the truck, I read a bit and try to write poems that wilt, listless on the page.  I eat the perfect orange, slowly, beneath the blue sky of spring.  In all of this I wonder, what am I doing here?  I’m deliberately unproductive on these days, deliberately leaving behind the laptop, setting no firm expectation for the day.  There’s prayer, yes, but most of the day feels decidedly unremarkable, strikingly unholy. 

There are no angel choirs, no visions from heaven.  I do spy a pileated woodpecker outside the whirled glass window at lunch, but if he’s meant to deliver a message from God, I fail on the receiving end.  It isn’t until the closing of the day that I remember again a bit of reading, a quote from Thomas Merton, “. . . all our salvation begins on the level of common and natural and ordinary things.”

The word “all” is what gets me, sticks like taffy in my soul’s teeth. 

I marvel at how unholy, how unremarkable these days apart seem most months and, on the whole, they’re filled with “common and natural and ordinary things.”  This much I cannot deny – food and rest, silence and small chatter, an ugly blanket, the warm black bed of a pickup truck. 

But Merton, sly fox, tips things up-side-down in one short sentence.  These things, he whispers, these. 

Carrots and coffee and sliced red pepper, quiet moments flipping pages soaked in sun, that orange, the smell of gasoline, the happy bees drinking life one blossom at a time.  

These things, he whispers, these. 

It’s then, at the end of the day, that I accept again the invitation to surrender to God’s backward ways of transformation.  God’s proclivity for infusing the material with divine.  

The door is everywhere.  All our salvation begins.   

*   *   *   *

I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.   

To Wait in Darkness (Advent Week 2) #SmallWonder Link-up

(Our truck isn't nearly this old, but some days it feels like it . . . )

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?  For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. - Malachi 3:1-4

By the tender mercy of our God,
   the dawn from on high will break upon us, 
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ - Luke 1:78-9

  

The rattle-trap, red, Ford pick-up squealed out of the driveway Tuesday morning and something broken inside of it gave voice all the way to my husband’s work and back home again that night.  He was kind enough to offer to help with dinner and the kids before buttoning up an old shirt and heading out to the garage to pop the hood. 

Before heading to bed, we decided he would call off work the next day to try to wrangle a repair. 

In the morning the older kids climbed into their yellow buses and the twins buckled into the van.  John was going to drop them off at preschool before heading to the auto parts store.  I headed out to the Little House to twiddle my thumbs as us artist types like to do, grateful to be excused from the thrice-weekly chore of drop-off. 

Minutes later he burst in the door.  “Can you come try to start the van while I look at the engine?” he asked.  “I can’t get it to start.”

Out into the cold winter rain I went to turn the key.  The van whined and moaned and finally I pumped the gas enough to give it a coughing start.

“I guess I’ll leave it on at the parts store,” he said, “I don’t want to get stuck over there.”

I stood in the driveway and watched him pull out. 

We couldn’t leave the van running all morning and how would we pick up the twins if we couldn’t get it to start?

//

I dread preschool drop-off because parents are instructed to pull-in under a carport where a teacher approaches, opens the door, and helps the kids out.  Sounds simple, right?

Except when your door handle's broken. 

Three times a week I cruise into the carport in our ancient burgundy minivan and lean back over the seats to pop the door open from the inside before whatever teacher happens to be on duty can make a fool out of herself wrestling the finicky handle. 

Three times a week I watch the twins climb out while silently hoping the teacher on duty won’t slide the door far enough open to cause it to latch.  Most days they do.  Then I’m stuck climbing over the seat again to unlatch the door and slide it shut.

It’s embarrassing. 

Wednesday, the day my husband stayed home and the vehicles went on strike, he didn’t know he needed to preemptively pop the door.  Instead, he sat calmly in the driver seat while one of the boy’s teachers yanked and pulled on the handle, trying to get the door to shut.   

With a mighty yank, the handle broke right off in her hand. 

“I broke your handle,” she said passing what was left to my husband.

//

The truck ended up being an easy fix and it appears the van was faking.  In the end, I had more time to write and work than I would have otherwise. 

All’s well that ends well, right?

I will say that Wednesday morning I wanted to cry and nearly did when I couldn’t figure out how we’d get the twins back home.  My mind bounced between righteous indignation, (This is Christmas!  This sort of thing shouldn’t happen at Christmas!) and self-pity (Of course!).

Somewhere between the opposing poles of control and resignation I found a tenuous place of surrender.  I clung to it in a way that seems in contradiction to what is essentially a posture of “letting go.”

//

Making wreaths at the dining room table the following today, I thought about this thing we’ve got going on, this month-long season of Christmas in which we feel sorely offended if the world appears to be coming apart at the seams.  We’re torn between demanding more - of the world, our children, ourselves - and a death-embracing resignation. 

Let me tell you what I know after wrangling evergreens and wire – it may be Christmas and you may want something more, but #$^% is gonna keep on keepin’ on. 

Red trucks will scream their way to work and back.

Minivans will embarrass and fake their own deaths.

Children will run wild through your house and you will be forced to play the “You’re father’s uncle died from falling down the stairs” card in a vain attempt to scare them straight.  But rather than accepting the logical conclusion that one should not play on the stairs, they will blame the victim because everyone knows if you’re falling down the stairs you can stop yourself before you hit your head.

You will accidentally step on the dog and scare the cat who will then claw the dog right on the nose and those two tiny drops of blood on that dear sweet nose will make you want to weep.

But worst of all (or is it?) someone, somewhere will take a gun and shoot one or two or twenty and the seeds of evil that dwell hidden in the human heart will again seem to block out all rays of light.

You will be tempted between control and resignation. 

You will want to decry the forces that be – the cat, the kids, the world in which “awful and terrible things happen.” 

You will want to throw your hands up in the air and walk away because someone somewhere has again ruined this yuletide season with their crimes and failures big and small.

But then you will remember.

We don’t celebrate Christmas because the world is perfect. 

We celebrate Christmas because the world is broken. 

It’s screaming to and from work, pulling apart at the seams, liable to break off in your very hands, broken.   

Advent is waiting with open hands, open hearts for the One who will sift through it all, cleansing, purging, until only what’s good, what’s pure and golden remains.  Until then, we stand strong, we endure, we hang tinsel and plug in the lights because, for now, it may be as close as we can get to that for which our hearts so long. 

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  

   

Slow Down

“Slow down.”

These words rise from heart to head each morning as I wake. 

I hear them walking away from a networking meeting at the small, brick café down the street. 

I hear them when the kids whirl around the kitchen like snowflakes in a blizzard and it’s all I can do to keep from blasting them into submission with a giant stomping shout. 

“Slow down,” the voice says.

//

In seminary we ran intellectual marathons – punishing races in pursuit of excellence.

In the hours when the kids are at school and I am my own boss, I feel myself pushing again in that old, familiar pattern. 

Run hard, run fast.  Do more.  Do it better.  Move, move, move.

//

And still, the small voice whispers, “Slow down.”

//

Last week we had the twins’ four-year-old well-visit at the pediatrician’s office.  John and I met at the office and the boys stripped down to their underwear and clambered around the room while we waited for the Dr.    

We asked about their speech, which the preschool seems to think needs fixing. We got caught up on necessary shots.      

With their birthdays falling in August, the appointment was well overdue. Between the well-visits, the eye dr. and the dentist we, it seems, are falling behind. 

“I can’t keep up,” I say to my husband, to myself, to anyone who is still long enough to listen. 

The thought of the dentist appointments needing to be scheduled and adding speech therapy for two into the mix?  It causes a panic in me, like water rising around someone who cannot swim. 

“Hurry, hurry,” life screams. 

//

Last year, coming off of a weekend of panic attacks, I took the twins to their well-visit by myself.  In the exam room panic rose around me.  My heart pounded, skin flashed hot and cold.  Two half-naked boys perched, one on each knee, was all that kept me from rising, running from the room. 

Maybe this is why the voice tells me, “Slow down.”  Because we can only spin so fast before we lose our balance and start to fall. 

Sometimes slow is the only way to be.  

Sometimes slow is the one necessary thing.  

//

Sitting with those words, "Slow down," and my markers, I found a few more words - maybe you need them too in this too often frenetic holiday season.

Slow down.  Just be.
Be still.  
Be present.
Listen to and dwell in what is
here, now, this moment.
What love? What fear?
And what possible doorway between the two? 
(Grace, always, is the door.)

  

Broken Beloved (for everyone ashamed of the pills they take)

Photo credit

Often, it’s a restless night and bad dreams that tell me I forgot.

Other times it’s the way I snap and growl at my children in the morning.  It's not that they’re worse than normal, but I’m less tolerant, carrying my own internal agitation which they scrape against like matches, igniting a latent fury.

//

Before bed and after TV, my husband takes the dog out into the darkness to pee.  In the dim kitchen I grind coffee beans for the morning’s brew, adding water and a clean filter to the pot.  Then I open the hutch's glass cabinet and grab the red bottle.  Opened, little oval pills scatter across the palm of my hand like seeds. 

For months, maybe even a year, I cut them precisely with a pill cutter.  Then one day, in a pinch, I realized they could be broken by hand. 

One and a half pills daily seems to be enough to do the trick.

//

Toward the end of summer, for various reasons, I decided I wanted to cut down to one pill, decreasing the dose by a third. 

It would be simpler, I told myself. 

Maybe I’ll lose weight, I thought (as though the daily consumption of potato chips couldn’t possibly be to blame for a recent weight gain). 

I’ve been so sleepy lately, maybe I’m over-medicated, I considered.    

The psychiatrist, hearing my plan, looked at me with surprise. 

“Usually the dose that works is the dose you should stay on,” she said.

“Well,” I said, “I want to try.” 

What I didn’t say was that I didn’t want to be on medicine, I didn’t want to need it.

//

I’d done enough googling to know coming off of antidepressants can be complicated.  I decided to drop the dose by a third every other day for a while and see what happened.  One pill one day, one and a half the next, and so on.

The problem was, I was nearing the one year anniversary of my psychiatric hospitalization. 

And I was preaching again for the first time in a year. 

And we were in the run-up for the annual back-to-school transition which, with four kids in three different schools, lasts well-over a month. 

And transition makes me anxious.

I tried, though.  I did.

What I found is I was more anxious, more irritable, more snappy.

I was a worse mother without that little half pill.  Unreasonably irritable, yelling and stomping rather than “using my words.”  It reminded me of the months after the twins were born, when I struggled so with my oldest son.  He would have been better off if I’d had those pills then. 

//

“It’s only been a year,” my counselor says, “give it some time.”

Ah, but me?  I want to not need.

Only now, what I want more, is to be a mother who doesn’t scream and shout in rage.  I want to be a little more able to go with the flow (which is the only way to go anywhere in a family of six).  Maybe if I had more control, more money, less kids I’d be able to structure my time, my life in a way that kept me from needing those pills. 

Yoga morning, noon and night. 

Health food. 

Meditation. 

For now though, when I look at the real choices before me, I pick up that red bottle and break the pills, like pieces of communion bread - grace I need, grace I cannot afford to do without.    

//

I have a friend who was wounded deeply by someone she loves.  After years of struggle and heart ache she considered breaking the relationship and felt God giving her the freedom to do so.  

Then, also, my friend felt God’s invitation, “Why don’t you try just loving the one who hurt you as God’s broken but beloved daughter?” 

I was thinking about that today.  

Thinking it's true, really, of all of us.  

We are God’s broken, beloved children.  

Maybe it would all go a little better if we thought of ourselves that way, as people who need.  I am God's broken, beloved daughter and I will take grace as it comes, however it comes, even if it arrives in a little, red bottle.